Engineering

Engineering Design Video:

We will use the Engineering Design Process to do the upcoming lessons and activities. This process is used to help engineers:

1. Ask questions about problems that are present in everyday life

2. Imagine/brainstorm what could be created to help solve problems

3. Plan what will be built and what materials will be needed

4. Create using the plan and test out the results

5. Improve parts that could work better if done differently, repeat steps 1-5 to make changes

Enjoy the read aloud Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty

Close Up

When you comment please leave your first name and last initial and if you go to Canal, Saccarappa or Congin! We miss you all! 💕

Friday, April 3

What am I?

Wednesday, April 1

Evi's hand!

Tuesday, March 31

a cinder block!

What am I?

Monday, March 30 

What am I?

(Hint: It can be found at one of the elementary schools.)

Thursday, March 26

maple leaf

What am I? 

Wednesday, March 25

soccer net

What am I?

Tuesday, March 24

What am I? 

Monday, March 23

birthday candle

What am I? 

(This is a difficult one.)

Friday, March 19

trampoline

What am I?

Thursday, March 18

cheese grater

What am I?

More snowy fun!

My kids Owen and Evi helped me do an activity to go along with our kindergarten learning about snow! If you are older you can do the activity too, test your knowledge of states of matter!  I hope you got outside to play in the snow!

 Our forsythia was covered in snow but it is a strong and healthy tree, a little snow won't keep it from blooming when it is time!

 We call this bird feeder "Cat TV". You can see my Maine coon cat, Lovey, is a little confused by the snow.  I think she is wondering if there will be any friends who will come to the feeder today to entertain her!

 My crazy son can't get enough skiing! This is Owen's old pair of skis, do you notice anything strange about what he is wearing?

 Covering our irises yesterday helped the warmth from the ground keep the flowers protected enough that they made it through the snow storm just fine!

I love to snowshoe!  Comment below on what you did today, we would love to hear from you!

⛄SNOW DAY!!! ⛄

Wow!  I wasn't expecting to get so much snow last night! I hope kindergarten students remembered the books we read in STEAM like Snowflake Bentley who loved snow so much he started studying snowflakes and taking photographs of them! I went outside and watched the flakes fall onto my black paper and tried to get some photographs to share with you! 

 I measured the snow that fell on my deck railing, it was about one marker high, or nearly 6 inches!

I have a snowball experiment I want to to do with you so I will make a video to post soon! What fun things will you do in the snow today? I can't wait to snowshoe around my house and my kids and I want to make snow angels and maybe jump on our trampoline in the snow!

3/23/20

It was a beautiful sunshiny weekend! The flowers were as happy to have the sun shining on them as I was, even if it was a little chilly it still felt nice to be outside! What did you do over the weekend? My family went for a lot of walks. We walked on trails in the woods and even got to Pine Point to walk along the ocean at low tide. There were other people and dogs on the beach but we were very careful to stay a safe distance from everyone, at low tide there was so much sand to walk on! Can you believe it is supposed to snow this evening!?

The forsythia bush is still trying to open it's buds into bright yellow blossoms. With snow on the way I am going to cover up the mini irises to help protect them from the cold. Our pretty purple patch has grown!

3/20/20

Here is the forsythia bud today, I remembered the zoom lens for my camera this time!

If you were wondering about the Close Up yesterday, it was a zoomed in photograph of our trampoline! I wonder what Mrs. Colgan posted today 😎

States of Matter

Matter is anything that takes up space. Matter can be in the state of a solid, liquid or gas. You can change the state of matter by changing the temperature. Follow the steps below to learn more. 

States of Matter:
1. Listen to the read-a-loud Burn by Darcy Pattison

2. Watch the following video and follow the instructions. You will need a piece of paper, a pencil, a blue crayon and red crayon.

3. Name the 3 states of matter. How can you change matter's state?

4. Watch the next video about Reversible or Irreversible Changes.

5. Learn more from Brainpopjr. Click on the links below and see what Moby and Annie have to say about Matter. 

States of Matter

Changing States of Matter

Physical and Chemical Changes

Happy First Day of Spring!

Day Two of Tree Challenge 2020

Hi Everyone!
Happy Spring! It isn't nearly as nice outdoors today as it was yesterday but I took a photo of my forsythia tree, not much has happened yet. 

Looking ahead to tomorrow there might be periods of showers but the high temperature is going to be 60ºF!  What are you plans today?  What will you do tomorrow when it is warmer outside?

Creativity

What have you been doing while at home to keep your creativity sharp?

Hi Friends,
Mrs. Colgan and Mrs. Gaulrapp have been spending our time away from school with our families.  We have been practicing social distancing so we have had plenty of quality family time playing board games, reading and playing outside.  What have you been doing at home while away from school?

 It is my forsythia tree that my mother gave to me several years ago, it was just a branch off the tree that I grew up watching bloom each year at my childhood home, three hours north. This one now blooms each year at my house. In past years my children have FaceTimed with their grandparents to compare our tree's blooms with the "mother" tree that is still going strong at my parents' house. Other years we are too busy with school, sports and other activities that we miss the splendor of the golden yellow blossoms altogether. In one way this time of learning at home is a gift for us to slow down and see everything that being outdoors in springtime in Maine has to offer. I have taken a photo of our blossoms and will keep you updated each day to see the changes that occur with our tree!

As I was outside taking a photo for this blog post I noticed some flowers are blooming in our garden. The first crocuses and mini irises have bloomed!

As soon as I get this post done my children and I are going to get rakes and carefully remove the dead weeds from the flowers so that they can come up! Somewhere in this mess are daffodils wanting to poke through!

We also filled our bird feeders today as well and will look forward to see what birds comes to visit!

My creativity of the day was to work in my garden.  I took photos with some new camera lenses my daughter got on Christmas and giving all of us more beautiful things to observe and wonder about. I hope you all have had some moments of being curious and exploring something outside!

Challenge of the day: Get outside, it is beautiful weather today!  Choose one tree or bush to observe.  This will be a place I ask you to visit each day while we are not at school.  Look at the branches. What do you notice? Are there any buds on the tree? Notice changes each day, I will post every day from my forsythia tree!

**STEAM Quote of the Day**